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Starting May 21, 2026, a research outcome from the LOEWE Center emergenCITY and the Center for Application and Transfer in Digital Resilience (DiReX) at TU Darmstadt will be on display at the Museum Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt: the "Litfaßsäule 4.0" (Advertising Column 4.0).

With the Litfaßsäule 4.0, researchers from the Department of "Design and Urban Development" have transformed a familiar piece of urban furniture into a new tool for crisis communication.The column – which, thanks to a combination of a fuel cell and a solar module, remains operational for up to 72 hours even during a power outage – features an additional display where information and warnings for the local population can be shown.

 Until June 28, the museum is presenting a model of the column, along with photographs of the prototype currently installed at Riegerplatz in Darmstadt, as part of the exhibition "Design for Democracy: What Design Can Achieve!". The exhibition takes 25 design examples from the Frankfurt-Rhine-Main region as its starting point to shed light on the relationship between design and democracy. In doing so, it examines the efficacy of good design and demonstrates the contribution that design can make toward addressing societal challenges.

The Litfaßsäule 4.0 is presented here as an example of how design can contribute to overcoming societal crises; for when developing resilient infrastructure for cities, the objective is not merely to ensure that technical solutions function reliably during a crisis. Equally important is the question of how such technologies must be designed to ensure they are accepted within the public space and utilized by the population.